My friends you want a speech, but I cannot make one at this time. I must have opportunity to think. Undue importance might be give...n to what I said. However, there is one thing I will do. You have a band with you. There's one piece of music I've always liked. Heretofore, it hasn't seemed the proper thing to use it in the North. But now by virtue of my prerogative as President and Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy, I declare it contraband of war and our lawful prize. I ask the band to play "Dixie."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by... 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Come Vitus, are we men, or are we children? Of what use are all these melodramatic gestures? You say your soul was killed, and tha...t you have been dead all these years. And what of me? Did we not both die here in Marmaros fifteen years ago? Are we any the less victims of the war than those whose bodies were torn asunder? Are we not both the living dead?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

But is an enemy so execrable that tho in captivity his wishes and comforts are to be disregarded and even crossed? I think not. It... is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time t...he task of news-writers is easy, they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Terrorists often claim to be fighting wars, and to be doing no more than is necessary in war. This is nonsense. War is certainly t...he natural expression of collective resentment; but it occurs between organised groups and is fought openly, against a collective enemy. It is possible to fight a war with undiminished respect for the rights of the enemy individual. Indeed, that is the duty of every soldier. But the terrorist must disregard this duty and disobey the law of war. His feelings towards the individual are abolished by his loathing of the group, and it is this--rather than his cowardice, cruelty, or intemporate hate--that constitutes his true moral corruption.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

What armies and how much of war I have seen, what thousands of marching troops, what fields of slain, what prisons, what hospitals..., what ruins, what cities in ashes, what hunger and nakedness, what orphanages, what widowhood, what wrongs and what vengeance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The one thing that enslaves people more than any other to the servitude of war is nationalism--the patriotic cant--Religious cant ...is feeble; its on a down slope fighting to hold territory--but the patriotism--all the noxious influences of the world seem to have thrown their tentacles about it--Its the mask of all the trade-greed & the glory-breed--and the asininity that makes people insist on sacrificing themselves on the nearest altar--no matter how brazen the God above it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Still, I'm much happier here, really in it than I've been for an age. People don't hate much at the front; there's no one to hate,... except the poor devils across the way, whom they [the French soldiers] know to be as miserable as themselves. They don't talk hypocritical bosh about the beauty & manliness of war: they feel in their souls that if they weren't cowards they would have ended the thing long ago--by going home, where they want to be. And lastly and best, they don't jabber about atrocities--of course, everyone commits them--though about one story in a million that reaches our blessed Benighted States is true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »